Housing Minister Phil Twyford needs to move out of Opposition mode and start making inroads to the problem he has long called a "crisis". He used the term again yesterday when publishing the report he commissioned soon after taking up the housing portfolio.
The report, a "stocktake" of the problem, tells him, he says, "the housing crisis is deeper and more entrenched than previously revealed". The basis for that conclusion is an estimate by emergency housing providers that they are turning away as many as nine out of every 10 homeless people who seek their help.
"Homelessness" is an elusive term. In last years' election campaign, Twyford constantly alluded to "40,000 homeless" and always in the next sentence he would mention people living on the streets and in cars. But they are probably a few hundred at most. The majority of the "homeless" are living in transient, overcrowded or substandard accommodation.
At its peak, in May last year, the Ministry of Social Development gave out 4300 emergency housing special needs grants. That gives a better idea of the scale of the urgent need.
The report does not in fact throw much more light on the various elements of the housing shortage that have been documented and discussed for a long time. That is not to say the problem is well understood.
